Lungo gli anni... Concetto Pozzati Alla De Foscherari

It was 1963 when Concetto Pozzati first showed one of his works at Galleria de’ Foscherari: a vast painting titled Grande spettacolo ortogonale, created “live” in the gallery space over the course of three days and three nights, alongside Pirro Cuniberti and Luciano De Vita. With a common aim, the three men had taken on the same challenge: to work side by side, like the artists who painted the frescos of yore, on a project that was both personal and collective.a.

That show was followed up the next year, at de’ Foscherari, by the artist’s first solo exhibition. It marked the beginning of a partnership that lasted more than fifty years, until Pozzati’s death, and gradually became indissoluble: shared visions, joint enthusiasms, reciprocal loyalty. A relationship based on almost daily interaction, built up through a thousand fruitful conversations—exchanging ideas, swapping news, and diligently weaving fresh intellectual ties.

Over the span of half a century, from 1964 to 2014, Pozzati presented sixteen shows at de’Foscherari, and there would have been another one this year, had the artist’s death not intervened.

And so, to fill this void insofar as possible, to commemorate our friend and retrace this profound, one-of-a-kind alliance, the gallery is presenting an exhibition which brings together a structured, multifaceted overview of Pozzati’s art. It draws on the reservoir of works that he presented at de’ Foscherari over the years, with one painting from each of the sixteen exhibitions held there. Sixteen works, in other words, plus one being shown for the first time: it has been chosen from a series of paintings that Pozzati was developing in the final period of his career, inspired by the deeply meaningful and powerfully evocative “figure” of the Vulva and intended for his next exhibition. Given this context, it is presented as the opening work in the show.

The gallery has a cultural program laid out along two separate but closely linked vectors: a close look at critically established tradition, with solo shows of work by Grosz, Morandi, Ernst, Calder, Klee, etc., and an interest in experimentation, with key events focused on Gnoli, Manzoni, Christo, Tancredi, Novelli, Twombly, Fioroni, Angeli, Tacchi, Festa, Pozzati, Schifano, and Sartelli.